Travis Dandro

Public Domain Pooh!

I thought that as soon as Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain some comic book publisher would quickly put out a straight-up Pooh graphic novel adaptation. Two years down the road, while there have been a couple comic series taking Pooh into dark fantasy realms, this is the very first time I have found A. A. Milne's original stories reinterpreted in comic book form. And, boy, was it worth the wait!

Travis Dandro masterfully brings Milne's witty dialogue to life in delightful layouts with expert pacing. He rightly ditches much of the Milne's narration, showing us the story instead of letting his pages become burdened by giant blocks of text. He also pays homage to E. H. Shepard by including the images we all remember from the original books amidst his own original illustrations.

Sure, I could quibble about Dandro's art style and word choices here and there, but I'm so happy to finally have a true Pooh graphic novel that tells all the stories from the first book. I dearly hope Dandro is working on an adaptation of The House at Pooh Corner. I can't wait to see what he does with Tigger.

(Pooh Project: Phase 2! I've managed to catalog all the shorter Pooh books my family owns (see the list here). While I work through few remaining longer Pooh books we own, I'm missing my daily dose of Pooh, so I'm going to start seeking out some of the Pooh books I don't own – yet – from libraries IRL and online. See the reviews here.)… (altro)

I lukewarm liked Travis Dandro's first memoir, King of King Court, but this follow-up, which picks up right where that one ends, used up the last of my good will with its slow, meandering story about an upset teen who acts out in mild but criminal ways due to all the crappy stuff in his life like his father's death and his grandmother's illness.

His grandmother is quite the character, but everyone else is barely developed, and some are not even named. Dandro does a real crappy job of reintroducing everyone from the first book.

As in the first volume, Dandro's layouts write checks his final art simply can't cash. Particularly annoying this time around was his lack of gutters between panels. He tries using a single heavy black line instead, but that sometimes gets lost in the cross-hatching or with the straight lines of the same weight he uses within his panels.

With the story too listless to provide motivation, I simply disengaged as I tired of wondering who all these people are and where panels begin and end. And then I flipped over to annoyed when the big thematic conclusion occurs in a dream sequence. Ugh.… (altro)

Literary Merit: Good
Characetrization: Great
Recommend: Yes
Level: high school

I’ve really been enjoying graphic memoirs lately so I wanted to give this a try. This story is about the destructive, toxic patterns people can’t get themselves out of and how it affects kids. Travis’s father becomes addicted to drugs after his brother suicide and is violent and abusive to those around him. Travis’s mom wants what’s best for her family but is also unable to escape an abusive relationship. Travis and his brothers witness events that are harmful and abusive with the adults in their lives causing more pain than they protect them from. I think this story shows how these cycles can ruin lives and just how hard it is to escape them.… (altro)